Tracking app installs

[David]

Hi everyone



I'm keen to learn how we might track app installs by passing advertising
campaign reference in the app download link. Google Play has the ability:
https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/android/devguid
e#google-play-tracking. Apple also has something similar but restricted to
their iAd service.



Also, do you have any information on how device ids will be communicated?



As a mobile advertising network this sort of info is vital so that we can
understand how we recognize device and user behavior and integrate this into
the ad serving/ management.



Thanks

David

[Anant Narayanan]

Hi David,

On 07/15/2012 08:38 PM, David wrote:
> I'm keen to learn how we might track app installs by passing advertising
> campaign reference in the app download link. Google Play has the ability:
> https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/android/devguid
> e#google-play-tracking. Apple also has something similar but restricted to
> their iAd service.

You'll need explicit support for this from the Store to which the app is
submitted. From a technical perspective, this can be achieved using the
install_data parameter in the mozApps.install() function. That data can
later be retrieved by the app using mozApps.getSelf().

> Also, do you have any information on how device ids will be communicated?

Same as above.

Regards,
-Anant

[Ian Bicking]

On Mon, Jul 16, 2012 at 11:50 AM, Anant Narayanan <an...@mozilla.com> wrote:

> Hi David,
>
>
> On 07/15/2012 08:38 PM, David wrote:
>
>> I'm keen to learn how we might track app installs by passing advertising
>> campaign reference in the app download link. Google Play has the ability:

>> https://developers.google.com/**analytics/devguides/**
>> collection/android/devguid<https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/android/devguid>

>> e#google-play-tracking. Apple also has something similar but restricted to
>> their iAd service.
>>
>
> You'll need explicit support for this from the Store to which the app is
> submitted. From a technical perspective, this can be achieved using the
> install_data parameter in the mozApps.install() function. That data can
> later be retrieved by the app using mozApps.getSelf().

You could also adjust the manifest URL for tracking, e.g., adding a query
string parameter. You could correlate that on the server side as well
(e.g., trying to detect apps that were installed but never opened). I'm
not sure if a manifest URL change would trigger a review in the
Marketplace, but hopefully not and if it does then that probably is worth
fixing.

Ian

[Kumar McMillan]

On Jul 16, 2012, at 1:17 PM, Ian Bicking wrote:

> On Mon, Jul 16, 2012 at 11:50 AM, Anant Narayanan <an...@mozilla.com> wrote:
>>
>> On 07/15/2012 08:38 PM, David wrote:
>>
>>> I'm keen to learn how we might track app installs by passing advertising
>>> campaign reference in the app download link. Google Play has the ability:
>>> https://developers.google.com/**analytics/devguides/**
>>> collection/android/devguid<https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/android/devguid>
>>> e#google-play-tracking. Apple also has something similar but restricted to
>>> their iAd service.

The marketplace code is based on that of addons.mozilla.org (AMO) and we had a tracking feature where you can link to an install page with a src parameter (set to whatever). This exists in Marketplace. For example, if you search for an app then go to the install page, the URL looks like this:
https://marketplace.mozilla.org/en-US/app/checkers/?src=search If you install the app from that page, the src is recorded.

In AMO we showed developers a tally of sources that led to the install of their add-on in their statistics dashboard. Here is an example of how to view those stats (this would be a login protected page though, available to developers). https://addons-dev.allizom.org/en-US/firefox/addon/flashblock/statistics/downloads/sources/?last=30

The stats dashboard for Marketplace is under heavy development right now but I already see a page to view app installs by source. For one of my apps, the URL is https://marketplace-dev.allizom.org/app/private-yacht/statistics/sales/source/?last=30 I see a lot of source breakdowns actually: amount earned by source, units sold by source, and units refunded by source.

-Kumar

[Anant Narayanan]

On 07/16/2012 09:50 AM, Anant Narayanan wrote:
> You'll need explicit support for this from the Store to which the app is
> submitted. From a technical perspective, this can be achieved using the
> install_data parameter in the mozApps.install() function. That data can
> later be retrieved by the app using mozApps.getSelf().

Correction: Using getSelf() to retrieve the install_data doesn't work
yet (we only return receipts), but this functionality is being tracked
at https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=760339

In the meantime, Ian's proposal of using the manifest URL should work great.

Cheers,
-Anant